About Mike Hiestand

An Air Force “military brat,” Mr. Hiestand (pronounced: HEE-STUND) was born in Arizona and lived all over the country, literally from one tip — Homestead, Fla. — to the other — Anchorage, Alaska — with a fun stop pretty close to the middle — Boulder, Colo. — and lots of other places in between. He graduated from Bartlett High School in Anchorage, Alaska, earned a journalism degree from Marquette University's College of Journalism, in Milwaukee, Wisc., and a law degree from Cornell Law School in Ithaca, New York. He was the staff attorney for the nonprofit Student Press Law Center, located just outside Washington, D.C., between 1991-2003 and, as the owner and founder of Zenger Consulting, worked full-time as the Center's sole consulting attorney until 2013. He continues to assist student media and work with the SPLC on various special projects affecting the student press community.

Over the years, Mr. Hiestand has provided legal assistance to nearly 15,000 high school and college student journalists and their advisers. (More information about his career with the Center is available is available here.)

A former student journalist himself, he has written and lectured extensively on legal issues affecting the student media and is the primary author of the third edition of the Student Press Law Center's book, Law of the Student Press (2008) and a co-author of the fourth edition (2013). Since 1993, he has been the primary author of Covering Campus Crime: A Handbook for Journalists, now in its its fifth edition (2014), and is the creator of the the SPLC Media Law Presentation series and the SPLC Test Your Knowledge quiz series, as well as various other Center projects and publications. He was also the author of It's the Law, a long-running column on student media law issues published by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Associated Collegiate Press. A recognized expert in the field, he has spoken to student, journalism and education groups across the country and abroad. He has appeared on various radio and television shows, including C-SPAN, Voice of America and National Public Radio and his comments have appeared in such national publications as The New York Times, USA Today, US News and World Report and The Wall Street Journal.

During the 2013-14 school year, Mr. Hiestand organized and participated in a nationwide civics education bus tour — the Tinker Tour — with Mary Beth Tinker, plaintiff in the landmark 1969 First Amendment Supreme Court case that bears her name, to talk at schools and colleges across the country about the importance of free speech and a free and independent press. The tour traveled nearly 25,000 miles, making over 100 stops while traveling through 41 states and two foreign countries.

In 2009, the National Scholastic Press Association named Mr. Hiestand a recipient of its Pioneer Award, the organization’s highest honor for journalism educators.

In 2012, the Society for Professional Journalists named named him the recipient of the prestigious SPJ First Amendment Award "for extraordinary efforts to preserve and strengthen the First Amendment."

In 2014, the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation named him the recipient of the foundation's First Amendment Award in Education for "significant contributions in the vital effort to protect and enhance First Amendment rights for all Americans" as part of the Tinker Tour.

In 2015, he was honored as one of Real Speaking Academy's 2015 Holy Fool's Day (April 1) fools. The mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell said a "Holy Fool is the most dangerous person on earth" because he or she will say whatever needs to be said, no matter what, to make a difference in the world.

In 2016, he was named the By-line Award winner for his contributions to the field of journalism by his alma mater Marquette University as part of their National Alumni Awards.

Mr. Hiestand has filed friend of the court briefs on various First Amendment and media law issues with appellate courts across the country and before the United States Supreme Court in nearly every significant free speech case affecting youth speech over the past two decades. He is a member of the bars of Washington State and the United States Supreme Court.